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According to a recent research report by Gartner, the overall mobile sales decreased this year with a fall of 9.4 percent. The number of sets sold dropped from 294.3 millions in Q1 2008 to 269.1 in Q1 2009. On the other hand, smartphone market share has continued to increase - setting a record of 13.5 percent of overall mobile sales - indicating a clear shift in the market trend.

Apple is the company that has benefitted most from this shift. There's a huge increase in iPhone market share, even more than 100 percent! While Apple controlled just 5.3 percent market share for smartphones in the first quarter 2008, its market share has boomed to an extraordinary 10.8 percent in the first quarter of 2009. With this increase, Apple maintains third place in the smartphone market falling short of Nokia and RIM.

Though most of the companies saw huge declines in sale figures, RIM's share has increased by 6.6 percent which making its market share a total of 19.9 percent. The company that has been hit badly is Nokia, which saw a decline of 3.9 percent leaving its share at 41.2 percent.

According to a Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza, "Much of the smartphone growth during the first quarter of 2009 was driven by touchscreen products, [T]ighter integration with applications and services around music, mobile e-mail, and Internet browsing made the difference at the high end of the market."

Even though Apple might face stiff competition from the upcoming Palm Pre which is scheduled to make its debut on 6th June this year, Apple still stands a great chance to expand the its market share with the expected release of next gen hardware and possibly different models.